The Flag of the World

Alas, it is beyond my power to force-choke the various conservatives who have lost their marbles over the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court (I’d only do it a little). The sensible voices–notably Hewitt, Ruffini, Miller and particularly Beldar–are largely being drowned out, but they will be vindicated eventually (possibly sooner rather than later). Orrin Judd highlights a profile of Miers from 1991 that should further soothe the wounded ego of the rightward punditocracy, but probably won’t.

There are lots of things that disturb me about the Right’s reaction to the nomination, but one in particular–and it’s the same thing that disturbed me about the reaction to the Roberts nomination. It is, in fact, a lack of faith in the strength of conservative principles. It has been a common theme running throughout any posting bemoaning the “stealth nominee” strategy, but was best summed up by a commenter called “JU” in response to a very good post by Carol Plat Liebau:

The chances of a 60 year old lawyer who previously had no strong feelings on the matter suddenly becoming an orginal meaning textualist are about .00000000001% , I would guess.

Frankly, that sounds like be beliefs of someone who doesn’t take originalism, or conservatism in general, very seriously. If decisions like Roe v. Wade are so egregious, and if originalism is the basic and clear ideology that so many on the right–myself, to a large degree, included–believe it is, then why are the chances so small? In other words, why are Bush’s nominees “guilty until proven innocent” when it comes to conservatism?

The easy answer is “Souter.” Justice Souter was supposedly conservative, but didn’t have a lengthy record to prove it, and turned out not to be. Of course, Clarence Thomas was supposedly conservative, but didn’t have a lengthy record to prove it, and turned out to be plenty conservative, so that easy answer doesn’t quite pan out. There’s also Justice Kennedy, who was a conservative once, but who “grew” while on the court, and now tends to be a reliably liberal vote (though that could change), not exactly a ringing testament to the strength of conservative ideology.

But in the realm of science (or baseball), that’s what we call a “small sample size,” and nothing significant can be gleaned from it. Looking at the world as a whole, I cannot help but conclude that conservatism is the more robust ideology, and that, especially surrounded by people such as Roberts, Thomas and Scalia, a member of the court who is already inclined to be conservative–as any member of the Bush administration clearly is–is likely to get more conservative, not less. Particularly when said conservative has already been described as a “pit bull in size six shoes,” and “an iron fist in a velvet glove.” Those who believe otherwise indicate more about their own lack of confidence in their beliefs than they do about the fitness of Miers to serve on the Supreme Court.

UPDATE: Patrick Ruffini has started up another Coalition of the Chillin’. I think the sentiments expressed here are particularly appropriate to that end. It could just as easily be the Coalition of the Confidently Conservative, but that doesn’t have quite the same ring to it. Seriously, though–if you believe that conservatism is a tenuous, ethereal thing that is truly rare, then you are significantly less apt to be ‘chillin’–in this instance and many others–than those who belive that conservatism is a simple, robust philosophy, shared, often unknowingly, by the majority of Americans–that it is the simple application of common sense to political life.

Me? I’m still chillin’.

Posted by Timothy Goddard at 9:17 pm 10/3/2005 | Republican Cores

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